Corporate Explainer Video for Investor Relations
An investor relations video is not marketing content with a financial subject. It is a disclosure document, and it sits inside the same regulatory framework as every other communication a listed company makes to the market. That changes what may be said, when it may be released, and critically where it may be distributed, because Regulation FD is concerned with who receives information as much as with what the information says. Most published guidance on this topic does not name a single securities regulation, which is a remarkable omission in a category where the wrong distribution choice is an enforcement matter rather than a marketing one.
Note on scope. This article is general information for investor relations and communications teams planning video content. It is not legal, securities or financial advice. Obligations vary by jurisdiction, listing venue and the specific facts, and materiality judgements in particular should be made by counsel. Confirm any disclosure approach with your own legal advisers before release.
The format does not change the obligation. Regulation FD concerns disclosure of material non-public information, and nothing in it depends on whether the disclosure is a document, a call or a video.
Distribution is the exposure. The SEC charged DraftKings in 2024 over information reaching only part of the investor base through the chief executive's social accounts.
The industry's headline statistic is fabricated. The widely quoted claim that 76 percent of investors prefer video to written reports misattributes a consumer marketing study.
Review belongs at script, not at picture lock. A required change to a claim invalidates the visuals built around it.
A pitch video is not an IR video. Advice written for private fundraising frequently recommends what a listed company must not do.
Search for guidance on producing an investor relations video and you will find advice about narrative clarity, executive coaching and data visualisation. It is reasonable advice. It is also written almost entirely without reference to the rules that determine whether the finished piece can be released at all.
This guide starts there instead. For the wider category see our overview of motion graphics for corporate communication, and for the format question underneath it, our comparison of animated and talking head internal video.
First, a Statistic That Does Not Exist
One figure dominates vendor content in this category: that 76 percent of investors prefer to watch a video rather than read a written report, attributed to Brightcove.
We attempted to locate the study. Brightcove has published research reporting that 76 percent of consumers cite video as their preferred content source when consuming brand information, drawn from a survey of 2,000 consumers conducted in 2014, and separately that 76 percent of consumers reported purchasing a product or service after viewing a video, from a 2018 marketing survey.
Neither study concerns investors. We could not locate any Brightcove research measuring investor preferences between video and written reporting.
A consumer marketing statistic from 2014 has been relabelled as an investor preference finding and is being used to sell video programmes to listed companies.
That matters more here than it would in most categories, because the audience for this claim is an investor relations function accustomed to sourced figures. An IR officer who checks the citation and finds a decade-old consumer survey will reasonably discount everything else in the proposal.
There are legitimate arguments for an investor relations video. None of them require an invented number.
What can be said about investor relations video without inventing anything: complex financial narratives benefit from visual sequencing, management credibility is communicated more directly on camera than in print, and an annual report that nobody reads in full is an argument for a summary in some form. Those are defensible claims about format. They do not need a survey that was never conducted.
An Investor Relations Video Is a Disclosure Document
The single most useful reframe available here is to stop treating the investor relations video as communications output and start treating it as corporate disclosure.
Regulation FD provides that when an issuer discloses material non-public information to certain individuals or entities, generally securities market professionals such as analysts, or holders of the issuer's securities who may well trade on the basis of the information, the issuer must also make public disclosure of that information.
Nothing in that framing turns on format. A briefing, a phone call, a slide deck and an investor relations video are treated alike. What matters is whether the information is material, whether it is non-public, and who received it.
What counts as non-public in an investor relations video
Information is non-public if it has not been disseminated in a manner making it available to investors generally. That is a distribution test rather than a secrecy test, which is the part communications teams most often misread. Material posted somewhere technically accessible, but not in a manner reaching investors generally, has not necessarily been made public.
The recklessness standard
Under Regulation FD, a selective disclosure is treated as intentional where the issuer, or a person acting on its behalf, knows or is reckless in not knowing that the information disclosed is both material and non-public.
The practical consequence for anyone producing an investor relations video is that not having considered the question is not a defence. A production team that never asked whether a figure was material, and released it on a channel reaching part of the shareholder base, does not improve its position by having been unaware.
Regulation FD and the Investor Relations Video Distribution Problem
Content review gets attention in investor relations video production. Distribution usually does not, and distribution is where the enforcement risk concentrates.
The 2013 guidance on channels
In 2013 the Securities and Exchange Commission confirmed that Regulation FD applies to social media and other emerging means of communication used by public companies the same way it applies to company websites. Companies may use such channels to announce key information in compliance with Regulation FD, provided investors have been alerted about which channels will be used to disseminate that information.
The conditional clause is the whole point for an investor relations video. A channel is an acceptable disclosure venue when investors have been told to watch it. A channel nobody was told about is not made acceptable by being public.
The 2024 enforcement action
In 2024 the Securities and Exchange Commission charged DraftKings with selectively disclosing material non-public information to investors who followed or otherwise viewed the company chief executive's social media accounts, without disclosing that same information to all investors, in violation of Regulation FD.
What makes this instructive for an investor relations video is that the issue was structural rather than editorial. The concern was that information reached some investors and not others through a channel that was not an established disclosure venue.
Name your disclosure channels and tell investors. If video is part of how you communicate material information, the venue should be identified in your filings and on your IR site, in the same way other disclosure channels are.
Release simultaneously. A video going live before the accompanying release, or to a subscriber list ahead of the public page, creates a window in which some holders have information others do not.
Executive channels are not corporate channels. A chief executive sharing an investor video from a personal account, particularly with added commentary, is precisely the pattern the 2024 action concerned.
Gated access deserves scrutiny. A video behind a registration wall is available to those who registered. Whether that constitutes availability to investors generally is a question for counsel, not for a marketing platform's default settings.
The Other Regulatory Layers on an Investor Relations Video
Regulation FD governs who receives an investor relations video and when. Three further constraints govern what the investor relations video may actually say and show.
Forward-looking statements
Statements about future performance, guidance, strategy and expected outcomes are forward-looking, and the conventional treatment is to identify them as such and accompany them with meaningful cautionary language about factors that could cause actual results to differ materially.
In video this is a design problem as much as a legal one. Cautionary language compressed into two seconds of illegible six-point type at the end of a film is a box-ticking gesture that serves nobody. Decide at script stage where the language appears, how long it holds on screen, whether it is also narrated, and whether the accompanying page carries the full text.
Non-GAAP measures
Regulation G governs the use of non-GAAP financial measures in public disclosures, and generally requires presentation of the most directly comparable GAAP measure together with a reconciliation between the two.
This collides directly with video production, because non-GAAP metrics such as adjusted earnings are exactly the figures that animate well, while a reconciliation table is exactly the content that does not. The workable pattern is to show the measure on screen, carry the comparable GAAP figure and the reconciliation in the accompanying page or document, and have the video point to that explicitly rather than leaving the viewer to find it.
Quiet periods and blackout windows
Investor relations video schedules and disclosure calendars are not naturally aligned. An investor relations video is frequently in production during a period when the company is constrained in what it may communicate, and the asset may be ready before it may be released.
The practical discipline is to build the disclosure calendar into the production schedule from the outset, rather than discovering at delivery that the piece cannot go out for three weeks and that by then the figures in it will have been superseded.
A note on Australia
Listed entities in Australia operate under a continuous disclosure regime administered through the ASX listing rules alongside obligations under the Corporations Act, and the broad principle that price sensitive information must be disclosed to the market rather than selectively is comparable. We have verified the United States position described above directly and have not examined the Australian requirements to the same depth here, so Australian issuers should treat this article as a framework and take local advice on the specifics.
Five Investor Relations Video Types, Ranked by Disclosure Risk
Not every investor relations video carries the same exposure. Sorting the asset set by risk lets review effort concentrate where it matters.
Results and earnings summary
Financial results presented in video form, typically alongside the formal release. Contains material information by definition, is time-critical, and frequently includes non-GAAP measures and forward-looking commentary in the same two minutes.
Controls: simultaneous release with the formal announcement, figures locked against the approved release, reconciliation carried on the accompanying page, and no distribution ahead of the market.
Strategy and guidance updates
Forward-looking by nature, which is exactly the category requiring the most careful treatment. Often produced for investor days, where the video is shown to a room before it is public.
Controls: cautionary language designed into the piece rather than appended, and a distribution plan that addresses the gap between the room and the market.
Annual report summary
Draws on already-published material, which lowers the risk considerably, but summarising is itself an editorial act. Emphasis, omission and framing can create an impression the full document does not support.
Controls: every figure traceable to the published report, and review of the overall impression rather than only the individual claims.
Business explainer for investors
Explaining how the company actually makes money, its operating model, or a segment the market misunderstands. Frequently the most genuinely useful investor relations video a company can produce, and the least time-critical.
Controls: watch for operational detail that is not yet public, and for competitive information the business would rather not volunteer.
Management and governance introductions
Introducing leadership, board composition or governance approach. Low disclosure risk, and one of the few categories where the talking head format is clearly correct, because the identity of the speaker is the content.
Controls: standard review, plus awareness that the asset is tied to individuals and will date when they move on.
Planning an IR video programme?
Magic Motion Studio produces investor relations video for listed companies across Australia and the USA.
What Belongs On Camera in an Investor Relations Video
The format question in an investor relations video resolves the same way it does elsewhere in corporate communication: by asking whether the identity of the speaker is part of the message.
| Content | Format | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| Chief executive on strategy or results | On camera | Management credibility is assessed by watching the person deliver it. Analysts read delivery as well as content |
| Accountability for a difficult period | On camera | An animated treatment reads as avoidance, and the market notices |
| Board and governance | On camera | The people are the subject |
| Financial performance over time | Animated | Direction and trend are visual, and speech is a poor medium for a five-year series |
| Operating model and revenue mechanics | Animated | Flows and relationships have a shape that narration cannot convey |
| Segment breakdowns and geography | Animated | Proportion and composition are diagrammatic by nature |
| Capital allocation | Animated | Where money goes is a flow diagram, not a sentence |
| Full results package | Both | Management framing, animated substance, management close |
The same sender-versus-subject test discussed in our guide to internal video applies here, with one addition: analysts are an unusually attentive audience for delivery as well as content.
One consideration in an investor relations video is specific to this audience. Institutional investors and analysts watch management for signals beyond the words, and an investor relations video that substitutes animation for a chief executive on a difficult result removes the very thing that audience was assessing. Animation is the right choice for the numbers. It is the wrong choice for accountability.
The Investor Relations Video Review Workflow
An investor relations video needs a review sequence closer to a regulatory filing than to a marketing asset, and building it correctly usually shortens the overall timeline despite adding steps.
Source lock
Every figure traced to an approved source document before scripting begins.
Script sign-off
Legal, IR and finance approve wording, claims and cautionary language.
Storyboard sign-off
The same reviewers approve what is shown, including how figures are framed.
Production
Restricted access, controlled distribution of cuts, no external sharing.
Release control
Timed to the disclosure calendar, simultaneous with the formal announcement.
Practices that make investor relations video review work
- Treat the figures as a locked data set. Approve the numbers once, before production, and require re-approval for any change. Every amendment restarts reconciliation.
- Include the visual framing in review. A compliant script can sit alongside a chart whose axis treatment overstates a trend. Reviewers who approved words have not yet seen the graph.
- Control the cuts. Work in progress containing unreleased results is material non-public information. Review copies should not circulate through consumer file-sharing links.
- Name the approvers. Sign-off from individuals in legal, IR and finance, not from functions.
- Put the disclosure calendar in the schedule. Not the marketing calendar.
Who Owns the Investor Relations Video
An organisational question that determines more about investor relations video compliance than any process document. Investor relations video sits awkwardly between functions, and where it lands decides whether the disclosure considerations above are addressed or assumed.
| Owner | What tends to go well | What tends to go wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Investor relations | Disclosure considerations are native. Release timing aligns with the calendar. Figures reconcile | Production quality can suffer without creative support, and the asset may never reach an audience beyond the IR page |
| Corporate communications | Message discipline and brand consistency. Comfortable with multi-stakeholder review | Distribution instincts are built for reach, which is the opposite of what disclosure control requires |
| Marketing | Strongest production capability and channel execution | Highest risk. Optimising for engagement, teasers and staggered release is precisely the wrong behaviour here |
| Shared, IR accountable | Creative capability with disclosure accountability sitting in one named place | Requires explicit agreement that IR holds a veto on timing and channel |
Structures vary. The point is not which function produces the work but which one is accountable for release.
The teaser problem in investor relations video
One pattern illustrates why investor relations video ownership matters. Marketing teams routinely build anticipation by releasing a short teaser ahead of a main asset. It is standard practice and it works.
Applied to a results video, it means publishing content derived from unreleased financial information before the formal announcement. Even a teaser containing no figures can carry tone, and a confident teaser preceding a results release communicates something to anyone paying attention.
Nobody involved in the investor relations video intends a disclosure problem. The practice simply arrives from a discipline where it is unremarkable, into one where it is not. That is the argument for IR holding release authority regardless of who produces the work.
Getting the investor relations video arrangement right
- Name one accountable owner for release. Production can be shared. Authority to publish cannot be ambiguous.
- Give IR an explicit veto on channel and timing, written down rather than assumed.
- Brief the production team on the constraints, including the studio. A supplier who does not know an asset is disclosure-controlled will handle files and review copies accordingly.
- Keep IR video outside consumer marketing platforms where scheduling, analytics and sharing defaults were designed for a different purpose.
Archiving and Retaining Investor Relations Video
A point routinely missed: an investor relations video that formed part of a disclosure does not stop mattering once the campaign ends.
If a video accompanied a results release, it is part of the record of what the company told the market on that date. Quietly removing it, or replacing it with an updated version at the same address, alters that record. Where figures are later restated or guidance is revised, the question of what was said and when becomes material.
The workable approach is to treat IR video the way the rest of the disclosure record is treated. Retain the released version rather than overwriting it, keep the approval trail and the source documents each version was built from, date the material visibly, and archive superseded pieces rather than deleting them. If your organisation has a document retention policy covering investor communications, video should sit inside it rather than on a marketing platform outside it.
An Investor Relations Video Is Not a Pitch Video
A distinction worth stating plainly about investor relations video, because advice intended for one context circulates freely into the other.
| Factor | Startup pitch video | Listed company IR video |
|---|---|---|
| Audience | A small number of targeted investors | The market, including holders you cannot identify |
| Distribution | Selective by design | Selective distribution is the risk |
| Forward-looking claims | Expected, projections are the product | Constrained, requires cautionary treatment |
| Confidentiality | Negotiated, often under agreement | Disclosure obligations run the other way |
| Review | Founders, sometimes counsel | Legal, IR, finance, sometimes the board |
| Consequence of error | Commercial | Regulatory |
For private fundraising specifically, see our guides to explainer videos for startups and investors and explainer videos for pitch decks, which address that context on its own terms.
The risk of importing pitch advice into an investor relations video is concrete. Guidance to share a video with a shortlist of interested parties, or to lead with an ambitious growth projection, is sound for a private raise and describes conduct a listed company should not engage in without considerable care.
Six Mistakes in Investor Relations Video Programmes
1. Treating distribution as a marketing decision
Choosing release channels and timing for reach rather than for disclosure compliance. This is where the enforcement risk concentrates, and it is usually decided by whoever runs the publishing platform.
Fix: put release channel and timing in front of legal alongside the script.
2. Legal review at picture lock
Sending a finished animation for approval, then discovering a claim needs qualifying in a way the visuals cannot accommodate.
Fix: two gates before production, at script and storyboard.
3. Cautionary language as an afterthought
Forward-looking statement language compressed into an illegible end card. It signals the obligation was treated as a formality.
Fix: design the language into the piece with real legibility and hold time.
4. Non-GAAP figures with nowhere to reconcile
Animating adjusted metrics because they visualise well, with no comparable GAAP figure or reconciliation accessible to the viewer.
Fix: carry the reconciliation on the accompanying page and point to it in the video.
5. Executives sharing from personal accounts
A chief executive posting the investor video with added commentary to followers. The 2024 enforcement action concerned this pattern.
Fix: agree in advance what executives may share, from where, and with what wording.
6. Overwriting the record
Replacing a released video at the same address with a corrected version, altering what the company appears to have told the market.
Fix: archive released versions and publish corrections as new, dated material.
Bringing It Together
The useful mental shift is to stop asking what makes a good investor relations video and start asking what makes a compliant one, because the second question constrains the first in ways that are not obvious until something goes wrong.
Three things follow. Put distribution in front of legal, not just content, because channel and timing are where the regulatory exposure actually sits. Review at script and storyboard rather than at delivery, since a required change to a claim invalidates everything built on it. And treat the released asset as part of the disclosure record rather than as marketing material that can be quietly updated.
For related guidance see our overview of motion graphics for corporate communication, the corporate explainer video page, what an explainer video is, and our production process.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. Regulation FD provides that when an issuer discloses material non-public information to securities market professionals or to holders who may trade on the basis of it, the issuer must also make public disclosure of the same information. Nothing in that depends on format, so a video is treated like a briefing, a call or a document. The SEC confirmed in 2013 that Regulation FD applies to social media and emerging channels the same way it applies to company websites, and that such channels may be used only where investors have been alerted that they will carry that information.
It can, and there is a recent action on the point. In 2024 the SEC charged DraftKings with selectively disclosing material non-public information to investors who followed or viewed the company chief executive's social media accounts, without disclosing the same information to all investors, in violation of Regulation FD. The pattern is instructive because it concerned channel rather than content. A video published where only part of the investor base will see it, containing anything material and not yet public, presents the same structural problem.
Information is non-public if it has not been disseminated in a manner making it available to investors generally, which is a distribution test rather than a secrecy test. Materiality turns on whether a reasonable investor would consider it important to an investment decision, and that judgement belongs to counsel rather than a communications team. Under Regulation FD a selective disclosure is treated as intentional where the issuer, or someone acting on its behalf, knows or is reckless in not knowing that the information is both material and non-public, so not having considered the question is not a defence.
The same way they are handled in any investor communication, which generally means identifying them as forward-looking and accompanying them with meaningful cautionary language about factors that could cause actual results to differ. In video this is a design problem as well as a legal one, because cautionary language compressed into two seconds of illegible type satisfies nobody. Decide at script stage where it appears, how long it holds, whether it is narrated, and whether the accompanying page carries the full text.
Regulation G governs non-GAAP financial measures in public disclosures and generally requires presentation of the most directly comparable GAAP measure together with a reconciliation. This collides with video production because non-GAAP metrics such as adjusted earnings are exactly what animates well, while a reconciliation table is exactly what does not. The workable pattern is to show the measure on screen, carry the comparable GAAP figure and reconciliation in the accompanying page, and have the video point to it explicitly.
No, and conflating them is a meaningful error. A startup raising private capital communicates with a small number of investors under negotiated confidentiality, with wide latitude over what is said and to whom. A listed company operates inside a disclosure regime governing what may be said, when and to whom, with regulatory consequences for getting distribution wrong. Advice written for pitch videos frequently recommends exactly what a public company must approach with caution, particularly selective sharing and ambitious forward-looking claims.
Sources
- Fair Disclosure, Regulation FD. US Securities and Exchange Commission investor education. investor.gov
- SEC Says Social Media OK for Company Announcements if Investors Are Alerted. US Securities and Exchange Commission, Press Release 2013-51, 2013.
- SEC Charges DraftKings with Selectively Disclosing Nonpublic Information Via CEO's Social Media Accounts. US Securities and Exchange Commission, Press Release 2024-149, 2024.
- Brightcove consumer video research, 2014 and 2018. Cited here only to note that these studies measured consumers rather than investors.
Investor relations video, built to clear disclosure review
Magic Motion Studio produces investor relations video and annual report animation for listed companies across Australia and the USA.